Darcy Luoma Coaching and Consulting

By

Time for a Team Check-Up

You might remember that my girls talked me into getting a dog shortly after safer-at-home policies began. I agreed, but on the condition that it was a foster dog. We designed our family dog alliance and spent almost four fun-filled (and slobber-filled) months with our two-year-old, 90-pound foster dog, Sirius.

It was about ten minutes after we dropped off Sirius with his forever family (after the tears were dried up) that the girls asked, “Can we get another foster dog?”

About ten days later, I agreed. Again.

Enter Samson: a two-month-old, 9-pound puppy.

[Read more…]

By

Difficult Conversations Don’t Need to be so Difficult

balance your courage compassion and curiosity shoes walking on stick jeans shoes green grass

Have you ever been part of a conversation where everyone is talking, but it doesn’t feel like anyone is listening?

There’s a reason that there are thousands of books, articles, and podcasts on communication. It’s a universal people problem, and it’s one we see all the time when we’re working with teams.

Communication skills are something that you need regardless of what industry you work in. Even if you work in a cube on a computer all day and never have to talk to clients or customers, you still have to communicate with your colleagues, or at the very least your boss.

In order to be successful, you have to find the BALANCE of three C’s to communicate effectively: courage, compassion, and curiosity. You need all three in order to have a conversation that balances what you want or needs with what the other person wants or needs. If you’re missing any of these three… well that’s when conversations get difficult.

Let’s take a closer look at all three C’s.

[Read more…]

By

Now is the Time for Listening

I recently presented a virtual training on coaching skills for managers. One of the activities focused on listening. For two minutes, the manager just had to listen to their partner and then repeat back what they heard. Sounds easy, right? 

Well, there is one comment I hear every time I do this activity. Can you guess what it is?

“It was so nice to be able to talk and just be heard.”

[Read more…]

By

What Your Team Can Learn From Our 90-Pound Foster Dog

Of all the accolades I’ve earned in my life, I’m particularly proud of an award I received last month.

Along with my daughters, we were named “Foster Family of the Month” from Fetch Wisconsin Rescue.

The girls have been asking me forever to get another pet. So in the middle of quarantine, when they were homeschooling and missing their friends and activities, they asked me again if we could get a dog. After watching our poor 14-year old cat tolerate them dressing her up in homemade face masks, because “they were sooooo bored!”, I finally agreed. 

With a caveat. That we get a foster dog.

A few weeks later, Sirius arrived. As in Sirius Black. He’s a one-and-a-half year old, Great Dane/labrador mix. Overnight, the girls became responsible for a 90-pound dog that was experiencing severe separation anxiety and had significant behavior issues. 

But he was also incredibly sweet, and we all fell in love with him immediately!

Suffice it to say, the work we did in between me agreeing to get a dog, and the day that Sirius arrived at our house, is what led to being Foster Family of the Month. Does that maybe surprise you to hear that the recognition was earned because of what we did before he even arrived? Read on.

[Read more…]

By

Choose Your Own Adventure

When looking to the year ahead, I definitely like to set some specific goals, but I also choose a one-word intention for the year. As you might have guessed from all of our December posts about clearing out, my word for 2020 is minimalism.

I have identified ways that I want to achieve this in all areas of my life, hopefully leading to a more streamlined business, a cleaner house, and a regular meditation practice.

So how did I come up with this? Well, I asked myself some tough questions about 2020. I combine that with what I learned about myself in 2019 and voila! An intention emerges. [Read more…]

Don't miss our weekly Thoughtfully Fit tips!